How to keep bees for profit/Chapter 15

AFTER the surplus honey has been gathered, whether it be comb or extracted,
its proper grading, packing, and
marketing is an important factor, as these
things added to the quality of the crop will
with a little attention mean the securing of a
better price for the output, and whether the
crop be large or small, is an item worth considering.
Where the apiary is of moderate size, there
is no better place to sell the crop than right
at home or in a near-by town, as the reputation
of the beekeeper, supplemented by a
high-grade article, will result in high prices.
The honey package should be attractive
whether it be wholesaled or retailed, and a
package a little more attractive than that of
the other dealers means increased revenue.

If the crop is extracted and is intended for
the commission trade or the wholesale bottler,
there is no better package than new five-gallon
cans, two of which come in a wooden case.
Being in cans, it is more easily handled by
the commission merchant and the bottler,
and in this shape will bring a little higher
price than if sent in wooden kegs with the
attendant labor of scooping it out for liquefying.
Use nothing but new, clean cans, and have
the early light honey separate from the later
dark honey; and be sure of the honesty of
the commission merchant, for thereby hangs
many a sad tale.

It will be far more profitable to bottle your
extracted honey in an attractive bottle and
work up a trade among the retail grocery
houses, as it means securing about fifteen
cents a pound net profit as against about seven
cents a pound net profit when sold wholesale.
The standard package for the retail is a
glass jar holding just one pound, and a nicely
printed label with a half-tone cut of the
apiary and a statement of the purity of the
honey will make for it a very ready sale.
These jars can be procured from the manufacturers,
and as they come in reshipping cases
holding two dozen, each can be shipped very
handily when filled.

By the time you are ready to bottle your
honey it will in all probability be granulated,
which in itself is a test of its purity; and to
return it to its liquid state it will be necessary
to heat it to about one hundred and fifty
degrees and hold it there for about three hours ;
but do not under any circumstances heat it
above one hundred and sixty degrees, or you
will spoil its delicate aroma and reduce its
value. A large tin boiler or galvanized square
can can be made at slight cost; it should be
eighteen inches deep, and in this boiler over
a gasolene or cook stove, with a block of
wood underneath each can of honey, one or
two of the sixty-pound cans can be placed,
with their caps removed, and the boiler filled
nearly full of water. When the water heats
to the desired point, it should be kept there
for about three hours, and when the honey
in the cans is nice and clear, which it will
be if it was properly strained at time of extracting,
the little one-pound jars should be
filled with the hot honey and capped at once,
when they are ready for the stores to which
they are to be sent.

A most excellent jar for this purpose is the
Hazel Atlas Simplex, a jar with a glass cap
and a waxed ring, and attractive to the eye.
Another good package for the home trade, if
a house-to-house canvass is to be made, is the
ordinary quart preserve or canning-jar, and
as the housewife can make use of this jar after
it is emptied, this style of package will appeal
to her.

The county fairs held in the fall form an
excellent medium for the sale of honey, as
the beekeeper can have a booth and an observation
hive at hand with live bees in it, and
such an exhibit will always attract a crowd.
Sometimes it is a good thing to take the
extracting cage referred to in another part
of this book, and in it have a hive of live
bees. The operator can then go through an
interesting performance that will astonish
the natives, and secure a large sale of his
honey.

Other beekeepers take a little cage of live
bees under their arms and visit the business
offices of our large cities, taking orders for
honey in gallon cans at $2 a gallon to be sent
by express C. O. D. at the expense of the
buyer; in this way a profitable employment
is secured for the beekeeper during the entire
winter months, with a larger profit for his
honey than if it were sent to the city wholesale.
Where the output runs up into many tons,
it will be more satisfactory for the producer
to send it to the cities in bulk, but even in this
case there is no reason why the producer
should not dispose of a large amount of his
output to the grocery trade in bottles, and
reap the benefits of the increased price secured.
Generally speaking, there is seldom more
than one beekeeper in business on an extensive
scale in a given place, and he will have
little difficulty in disposing of his crop at home
and in near-by towns to both stores and
families. This will necessitate the use of
a horse and wagon, but the greater profit
will make this plan advisable, and it is followed
by hundreds of beekeepers every year.
I know an old man seventy years of age, who
puts his honey up in quart jars, and visits
the factories and shops at the noon hour,
giving a little talk on bees, who has sold as
much as $2000 worth of honey in a single
year. He gets fifty cents a quart for his
honey.

Sometimes in a large city a vacant store on a
busy thoroughfare can be rented for a month,
and a display of live bees and honey will
result in large sales at fancy prices, as bees
are a source of interest to city folk. Department
stores are good customers and are glad
to have an exhibit of live bees in observation
hives together with a nice display of honey,
as such exhibits draw a crowd and result in
business in all departments.
With the new pure food laws in operation,
the beekeeper is having his day, as he no
longer has to compete with mixtures of honey
and glucose masquerading under the name
of pure honey, as was formerly the case. In
the matter of honey these laws are rigidly
enforced, and adulterated honey is required
to have a statement on every package, stating
just what the adulterant is and in what proportions.
Few people will buy such stuff
when they can secure the real thing at a moderate
price.

Comb honey has to be prepared in an entirely
different way to be placed on the market,
and unless great caution is exercised in the
matter of packing, serious breakage of the
combs will follow. Each section should be
carefully scraped of all particles of propolis,
and the honey according to its appearance
carefully graded and marked. The ordinary
shipping-cases with glass on one side
and corrugated paper in the bottom, and holding
twenty-four sections, is the best all-round
package that can be used, and these cases
No-Drip Shipping-Case.

can be purchased at moderate cost from any
of the supply houses that make them especially
for the comb honey producers.
Under no circumstances should these cases
be shipped individually. A number of them
should be packed in a crate with projecting
strips for handles, and the bottom of the
crate filled with at least six inches of hay or
straw to act as a cushion for the honey and
prevent its breakage in transit.
It is the poorest of policies to face the glass
end of each case with the best sections, and
put the poorer ones at the back, as the trick will
Shipping-Crate.
sooner or later be discovered to the detriment
of the shipper. A better plan is to select
and grade all the best sections and put them
in cases by themselves, and crate the poorer
ones by themselves; the additional price of
the first grade will average the price in a
satisfactory manner.

In scraping the propolis from the sections
nothing is better than a broad-bladed butcher
knife. Unless you are careful, there will be
more or less gashing of the surfaces of the
sections with its resulting drippings, which
will make them sticky and unsightly, and
greatly reduce their value. Though there is
no reason why there should not be a universal
rule for grading comb honey, certain rules
prevail of a twofold character, known as
"Rules for Western Beekeepers," and "Rules
for Eastern Beekeepers."

The Eastern Grading Rules read as follows:
FANCY. All sections well filled: combs
straight, firmly attached to all four sides; combs
unsoiled by travel stain or otherwise; all the
cells sealed except an occasional one ; the outside
surface of the wood well scraped of propolis.
A No. 1. All sections well filled except the
row of cells next to the wood; combs straight;
one-eighth part of the comb surface soiled, or
the entire surface slightly soiled; the outside
surface of the wood well scraped of propolis.
No. 1. All sections well filled except the
row of cells next to the wood; combs comparatively
even; one-eighth part of the comb
surface soiled, or the entire surface slightly soiled.
No. 2. Three-fourths of the total surface
must be filled and sealed.
No. 3. Must weigh at least half as much
as a full-weight section.
In addition the honey must be classified
according to color, using the terms white,
amber, and dark ; that is, there will be, "Fancy
White," "No. 1 dark," etc.
These are the result of the action of the
National Beekeepers' Association in convention
in Washington, D.C., in December, 1892.

The Colorado Beekeepers' Association
adopted the following rules, which prevail
west of the Mississippi:
NEW COMB-HONEY GRADING-RULES ADOPTED BY THE COLORADO STATE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION

No. 1 WHITE. Sections to be well filled
and evenly capped except the outside row,
next to the wood; honey white or slightly
amber, comb and cappings white, and not
projecting beyond the wood ; wood to be well
cleaned; cases of separatored honey to average
21 pounds net per case of 24 sections, no
section in this grade to weigh less than 13^
ounces.
Cases of half-separatored honey to average
not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
Cases of unseparatored honey to average
not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
No. 1 LIGHT AMBER. Sections to be well
filled and evenly capped, except the outside
row, next to the wood; honey white or light
amber; comb and cappings from white to
off color, but not dark; comb not projecting
beyond the wood ; wood to be well cleaned.
Cases of separatored honey to average 21
pounds net per case of 24 sections ; no section
in this grade to weigh less than 13J ounces.
Cases of half-separatored honey to average
not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
Cases of unseparatored honey to average
not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
No. 2. This includes all white honey,
and amber honey not included in the above
grades; sections to be fairly well filled and
capped, no more than 25 uncapped cells,
exclusive of outside row, permitted in this
grade, wood to be well cleaned, no section
in this grade to weigh less than 12 ounces.
Cases of separatored honey to average not
less than 19 pounds net.
Cases of half-separatored honey to average
not less than 20 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
Cases of half-separatored honey to average
not less than 20 pounds net per case of 24
sections.
Cases of unseparatored honey to average
not less than 21 pounds net per case of 24
sections.

It can be seen by the above that the rules
for the eastern beekeepers are a little more
discriminating than the western standard, and
enable the buyer to form a clearer idea of
just the quality of the honey bought.
When producing comb honey for market,
the beekeeper has several styles and sizes
of sections from which to select, though in
each case the amount of honey will be nearly
the same. Formerly the square section with
the slotted bee-way was the only one that
was used, but there is a growing demand for
a plain section a little taller than wide, measuring
4 x 5 x 1|- inches, and although this section
is a trifle thinner than the old style,
yet it appears to have more honey, and is
being adopted more and more by up-to-date
beekeepers.

There is a class of trade that demands that
every section when it is packed shall be glazed,
with pieces of glass fitted to each side of the
surface of the wooden holder, and although
they are a nuisance to prepare, it pays if the
trade demands it, as a little higher price can
be secured for the trouble, especially if a fancy
paper border is used to secure the glass to
the section. Where glass is not used, it is
well to encase each section in a pasteboard
carton, as it protects the honey and adds to
the appearance of the section.
If the faces of some combs are slightly
stained, they can be bleached by placing them
in a box or small room and fumigating them
with the fumes of burning sulphur, or else
they can be exposed to the direct rays of the
sun, to accomplish the same result.